Dean Shepard

You don't need to case oyster mushrooms. Those look more like magic mushrooms  than oysters. Are you sure you didn't mis-label your spawn? Where did you get your spawn?

Nice pic! I love looking at mushroom photos.  I'm not good at identifying wild mushrooms but a pic of the underside showing the gills might help those that can.

I have not tried this myself but I've heard of people having success growing morels with the following method. In short: Take some fresh picked morels and place them in a bucket of water. Swirl them around to collect the spores. Remove the mushrooms. Pour the water into the soil. Sprinkle the area with wood ash. Wait for mushrooms to appear. It might be worth a shot if morels grow in your area. Check out these links for complete instructions. https://www.mushroom-appreciation.com/growing-morel-mushrooms.html#sthash.AzdOzbzX.dpbs  https://www.thespruce.com/how-to-grow-and-care-for-morel-mushrooms-4686369

Yes 1245 and 1247 but I'd take a wait and see approach.

Place the ice pack under the substrate and use  a cheap probe thermometer to monitor the substrate temperture.  I always monitor the substrate temperture as well as the air temperture  during all phases of growing.  During the spawn run the mycellium generates heat making the the substrate temperture  up to 5 degrees F warmer than the ambient air temperture. Once the substate is fully colonized the substrate temperture will drop overnight and match the air temperture. This is the precise timing to iniate fruiting.

What happenet to the large chamber you had in the first set of pictures? That looked ideal. Do you have and  use a cheap humidistat to monitor the RH in the chamber?  Cooling is  harder than heating for sure. There are many varieties of oysters suitable for different enviroments. So you want to grow warm weather varieties in the summer and cool weather varieties in the winter. If I rememeber correctly yellow and pink are warm varieties.  You could try placing a reusable freezer pack in the chamber to lower the temperture. BTW the cluster of yellow mushrooms looks very good. It looks like you have some mycellium overlay on the new bags. If pins fail to form you can scratch the surface with a fork (don't overdo it) and new pins will form.  Your pictures are excellent making it a lot easier to trouble shoot any problems. Your doing well, I can see some nice clusters forming.

Your mushrooms are suffering from a lack of fresh air and excessive moisture. You can tell the RH is to high by the "fuzzy feet". Since you are using a fruiting chamber you can remove  the plastic bag encasing the substrate before placement in the fruiting chamber. Ideally the substrate should be placed vertically rather than on its side to maximize surface fruiting area. Establishing and maintaing the correct RH and FAE (fresh air exchange) is a delicate balancing act learned from experiance and experimentation. If you have a lid on your fruiting chamber a small crack open may suffice.

You may have a touch of verticillium wilt or it may be just from the lack of fresh air. Cut rather than pluck all the mushrooms off of the substrate. Wait 2-4 days and the stem butts will fuzz up and be easily detached with your fingers and not disturb the substrate like plucking them will.  I can see hyphal knots present so you have plenty of mushrooms ready to grow when the conditions are right.

The yellowing you see in the bags is mushroom metabolites or mushroom "piss" if you want to put it that way caused by waiting to long to initiate fruiting.  Strip the bag off and place the substrate in your fruiting chamber.

I have never soaked substrate between flushes so I can't comment on the effectiveness. I use succesive VERY FINE MISTINGS until pin heads form. The time between flushes varies and is dependent on several factors. This is what makes growing them commercially difficult because its hard to know exactly how pounds you will have on any given week. Unlike growing something like chickens where x number of chicks started will yield x number of pounds in x number of weeks.

Please provide updates on your grow. Your doing very well for a beginner. You've managed to get them to the fruiting stage without contamination which is harder for some people than you may think. Cheers!

Interesting problem. It's unusual to have late stage contamination. Mushrooms are pretty resistant once colonized. I suspect the vector is when you introduce fresh air to initiate pinning. Opening a contaminated jar near your grow area is poor practice. Contaminated jars should be PC'd before opening. At the very least open them underwater in a 10% bleach solution. You really don't want to breathe that stuff in. That said openning a spore laden jar should not be infecting your crop months later. Unless the spores found a hidden spot to grow and is actively growing and producing new spores. Look for areas where hidden mold may be growing.  Take a couple of sterilized agar plates and  open them in your grow area for a couple of minutes. Close them up and incubate them to see the amount and type of background contamination.

With a bit more information I might be able to provide more help. What are you using for a grow area? What are your running and fruiting tempertures? Exactly what type of mold(s) are you experiancing? What is the source of your fresh air? Is it filtered? A dirty filter could be a vector.

I feel your frustration but don't give up. You seem to be doing everything right.  Some patient detective work to find the source and eliminate it and you will be back in business.

I know some people have great success with coffee grounds but I've never tried them.  

The mushroom fly larvae do the damage. Commercial button mushroom farmers use spray to control them. I would toss the substrate. Burn it, bury it, drown it as far from your grow area as possible. Then clean your grow space. When you think its clean; clean it again.  What are you using for substrate?  Flies usually originate from improperly prepared substrate.